Rocky Mountain Ride (Rocky Mountain Bride Series Book 7) (24 page)

Cage shrugged. “Women are sentimental like that. Motherhood instinct. They love us even when—”

“When we’re awful little shits?”

“Yeah.”

“I have to go back,” Sebastian said in a determined tone. “I have no money to pay you, Cage. I don’t expect you—”

The silver haired man held up a hand. “I’m in it for the long haul. Way I was made.”

Sebastian took a deep breath and nodded. His whole world was tilting on its axis, but with Francesca at the center, he felt he was right where he needed to be, on solid ground.

“Just tell me what to do,” Cage continued.

“Right,” Sebastian said. “I have an idea.”

*

When Sebastian reached the hacienda an hour before dusk, he felt noble for the first time in his life. He’d never realized how he’d patterned himself after the duke. If calling women slatterns, using them like whores and abandoning them was what it took to be the sort of man his father respected, he didn’t want to be one. He’d write to his father about his inheritance, telling him to stuff it up his arse, and wash his hands of the whole lot.

“I’m a free man,” he told his stallion cheerfully, as he galloped through the orchard. “All I have is a horse and my armor, and the love of a lady. Just like a knight of old.”

His spirits dampened as he strode around the gardens, calling for Francesca. The apothecary door was ajar, so he looked there first. It was empty, so he shut the door carefully and loped off to the hacienda, noting that his wife’s horse was in the stable.

The kitchen door was locked. Frowning, he pounded on it.

“Ana!”

She opened the door, and he took a step back at the furious look on her face.

“What do you want?”

“I’m an idiot.”

Her look softened somewhat, but she still blocked the door, glaring at him.

“I never should have left. I was a fool, and I’m sorry.”

“You left her—”

“I know, I swear I’ll never do it again.”

“It’s too late, señor.” She crumpled a little. “She is not here.”

“Too late…where is she?”

Ana’s shoulders shook as she cried, “They came for her, and you were not here. Juan could not stop them alone. They took her—”

“Who?” even though he knew.

“The people who blame her for Camila’s death. They took her to the church, and I don’t know what they will do.”

“Stay inside and bar the door,” he ordered, and raced to his noble steed, praying he wasn’t too late to have failed her.

*

Francesca sat in the cool bowels of the church. They had come for her late afternoon, throwing open the door of the apothecary. She had recognized a few of them.

“Señor Ruiz, how is your gout?” she asked calmly.

“Be silent.” The man she’d known from childhood approached and slapped her. His face was twisted in disgust.

Francesca looked around at the rest of the villagers and saw no mercy, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.

“Put a bag over her head, lest she give us the evil eye.”

Bound and blindfolded, Francesca let them lead her through the streets. She didn’t need to ask where they were taking her. When she heard the church bells, and felt the flagstones of the cathedral under her shoes, she knew

She felt a terrible calm to her very bones, beyond sorrow, beyond hope.

Her mother, her father, her husband, and finally her love had gone and she was alone.

The villagers pushed her into the church, and silent men brought her downstairs to a dank, chilly place. Someone tugged the bag off her head and Bishop Bernardo stood in front of her.

“Welcome, my child. It has been too long since you have come to visit us. Not since you were very young.”

“My father made me attend mass. Then I started studying my mother’s arts and chose not to return.”

“Your mother led you down a dark path, but there is redemption, if you repent.”

Francesca shrugged. “I have no sins.”

“The town says otherwise. They came to me listing many sins. One of them being murder.”

“I did not murder Camila. If anything, her own husband’s neglect and cruelty did.”

“It is your word against his.”

“And of course, you believe the man’s.” She sighed. The bishop’s face had a greedy, gloating look. He hated her and her mother because he could not control them. They moved outside his rule, untouched by his message of sin and despair, the chains he used to bind people.

“If I find you guilty of your crimes, you will hang.”

Francesca thought of the ranch, the day to day struggle. Ana and Juan would have to find a new mistress or master. The apothecary would probably be burned as a witch’s haven, as would the grove of mothers. Perhaps Juan or Ana would take her dead body and bury it. Or perhaps not. Her spirit would rest in the trees, waiting forever for an Englishman to return.

“Very well,” Francesca told him. “I am ready to die.”

A grin spread across the priest’s face.

*

They locked her in a small room to await judgment. She’d settled on the only chair when the door creaked open.

She looked up tiredly. “Diego?”

“Sister.” There was a restless energy to Diego that made her uneasy.

“What are you doing here?”

“I came to free you.”

She didn’t rise. “How?”

“The townspeople will listen to me, if I tell them to release you into my custody. You will be safe with me.”

She studied him for a moment. “What do you want in return?”

“Nothing,” he answered too quickly.

“Nothing?”

“Francesca, we have longed for each other since we were young. Why not enjoy ourselves now?”

“I am married.”

“The Englishman? Then where is he?”

She didn’t answer.

“My men say he’s returned home.”

“Your men? Are they watching the hacienda?” She felt the barest flash of anger. “Are they watching me?”

Diego cocked his handsome head. “Only to keep you safe. Since the Royal Mountain gang came to trouble the hacienda, I’ve kept an eye on you, little sister.”

“How do you know it was the Royal Mountain gang?”

He shrugged.

“You know because you ran with them. How else did they know what fences to destroy, or the movements of the vaqueros, or when to come to my home?”

He didn’t confirm or deny, but the smugness in his face told her she was right, and that he was proud of what he’d done. “You want my land.”

“I want you.”

“Gaining me gains my land.”

“That’s one way,” he said, and Francesca guessed the other way: her death.

“Is this a proposal of marriage?”

“Your English fop is gone and you are a widow again. I can take you back to my home and care for you. I’ll give you food, shelter, protection, as long as you need.”

“As long as you need me,” Francesca corrected. “You’ll step in, run my ranch, take control of my property. Then, unless I’m duly grateful, you claim I went mad and killed myself, drowning myself in the acequia?”

He didn’t deny it.

“Did Charlie the Red kill Cyro?”

“Who knows? Someone followed my brother from the saloon that night.”

“He was not going to meet the outlaw,” Francesca guessed. “Cyro went to meet you.”

“We were going to do business together. But he said he didn’t trust me. My own brother.”

“So you shot him.”

“Me or another…does it make a difference? Nothing stood between me and what I wanted.”

“Except me,” Francesca stated.

“You would’ve come around. If this damned Englishman hadn’t intervened.” Diego prowled around her chair. “But now he’s gone. Everyone has left you, Francesca. You are all alone, and must accept my help.”

“Go with you, and turn my ranch over, or stay here and die.”

“Yes, Francesca. I win. With or without you, I win.” He waited, as if expecting her answer.

“I would sooner lie with a snake than with you,” she said. “At least I expect the snake’s venom. Your poison has no natural purpose. Your brother would be ashamed of what you have become.”

“My brother was a weakling,” Diego sneered.

“Your brother was a man. I am glad my father gave me to him, and not you.”

Two feverish spots of color appeared on Diego’s cheeks. “They will hang you if I give the word. But I can still tell them it’s all a misunderstanding. I will take you under my rule and punish you as you should be punished. They will listen to a man. They will let you live.”

“No, thank you, Diego. I have already told Bishop Bernardo that I am ready to die.”

The Bishop entered as if he had been waiting outside the door.

“And you will soon get your wish. It is time.”

*

As she stood before her accusers in the church, Francesca kept her eyes on the statue of a tortured man in a crown of thorns, writhing in agony. The bishop’s voice echoed around the stone cavern, listing all Francesca’s sins.

“We allowed this witch to continue to practice her dark arts, and follow her mother down the path to evil. We invited her into our homes, around our women and children. Her powers have been growing; she bled the butcher’s wife from afar. And now we have drought, because we have allowed this abomination in our midst.”

“The acequias have always been full until now,” someone in the crowd murmured.

“She has done it. The witch,” another agreed.

Movement caught Francesca’s eye. Diego Montoya stood in the wings of the church, watching the proceedings. How soon after her death would he ride to claim the ranch?

“There is the matter of Señor Cyro Montoya’s suspicious death. He was killed in a brawl true, but why would he be in that saloon, he was not a drinker?”

Her eyes widened. They intended to blame her for her husband’s death? She spoke up, her own voice rolling over the crowd.

“That is not true! I would never hurt my husband. His brother lured him there, and hired a man to kill him.” Or shot Cyro himself, Francesca thought. Watching the angry flush rise over Diego’s face, she believed it was possible that this man could kill his own brother.

“Why would a man kill his own brother? Señor Montoya is respected. He would not do that.”

As the bishop defended him, Diego stood with his hands clasped and a sad look on his face. Francesca knew then that Diego had planned it all, and used the priest and the Royal Mountain Gang to wage war on his brother’s ranch until it was within his grasp. The crowd agreed with the bishop, and Diego turned and strode out of the church. The town would pity him, a man who lost his brother and brought justice to the scheming sorceress wife. He set events in play when she refused him at the funeral, causing trouble at the ranch to see if she’d run to him for help. And when she didn’t, he planned to destroy her.

And he’d won.

The bishop loomed over her, triumphant in his role of judge and jury, and executioner.

Madre, save me from men who want power.

She looked about the crowd, recognizing every face, but not the hate twisted expressions. These were the bishop’s people, the hand picked faithful. Still, she hoped that at least one who had benefited from her or her mother’s healing wisdom would stand for her.

“I am innocent.” She spread her hands. “I will not listen to these lies.”

“Shut your vile mouth, whore.” The priest backhanded her, and Francesca sagged to the ground. “You will not speak again.”

Wiping blood from her face, she heard her sentence. “She will be flogged for her transgressions and then drowned.”

A commotion at the back of the church interrupted. Francesca used the lull to rise from the floor, her hand over her throbbing face.

A man was riding a stallion down between the wood pews, sporting a pistol and unruly flaxen hair. He was grinning like a fool.

“Lovely evening for a ride, isn’t it?” Sebastian asked the gathering as his stallion trotted past. People pressed aside, away from the snorting beast. “Haven’t been to mass in ages. Almost never, actually, though there was this one time with a whore in Spain…never mind.” Sebastian reached the head of the church.

“You.” He pointed his weapon at the priest. “Touch my wife again and I’ll blow your head off.”

“You can’t ride in here,” the priest sputtered. “This is a holy place!”

The stallion took that moment to defecate on the altar.

“Sorry, old boy. Wouldn’t know about all that. I’m just a farmer.” Sebastian turned his grin to Francesca, who couldn’t move, lest her heart burst with happiness.

The Bishop looked around to his followers, but none of the peasants seemed willing to take on a crazy Englishman with a gun. Apparently, persecuting a healing woman was all they had signed on for.

Sebastian extended a hand to Francesca. “My lady? Would you do me the honor of allowing me to escort you home?”